


Calculus

by liquidCitrus



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Calculus, Comedy, Gen, Houston Spies (Blaseball Team), Mute Math Velazquez, Slice of Life, Son is college age, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27462388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquidCitrus/pseuds/liquidCitrus
Summary: Math disappears for a moment, returns with a plastic lawn flamingo and a bucket of Wego bricks, and beckons.Who better than the sentient concept of math itself to help Son Scotch with some math?(Karato Bean may look like your usual surfer dude, but they know what they're doing.)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	Calculus

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue is _so hard_ to write when one of the characters doesn't even speak.

When Math Velasquez comes to the door of one of the clubhouse side-rooms, Son Scotch is puzzling over something on a computer screen. "Oh. Hi."

Math floats over, and presents a graph on a calculator: [?]

"Calculus," Son says. "How am I supposed to find the volume of this... thing?"

Math's fingers fly across the keys of the calculator. [Have you ever wanted to find out the volume of a flamingo?]

"What?"

Math disappears for a moment, returns with a plastic lawn flamingo and a bucket of Wego bricks, and beckons.

Over the next hour they build a matching lawn flamingo, the same size, out of Wegos. Son stands back and admires it, snapping a photograph and sending it off to their teammates. Math extends a thumbs-up and begins to disassemble the flamingo.

Son notices a shadow behind them, and turns. Karato Bean is standing there.

"Hey," Karato says. "What's all this for?"

"Finding the volume of a flamingo," proclaims Son.

"What?" Karato says, quirking a flawlessly gelled eyebrow.

Son points to the plastic flamingo. "Volume. Of a flamingo. Apparently Math thought it would help with class."

"There's an easier way to do this. Come with me. Bring the flamingo."

Son picks up the flamingo, nodding to Math. "I'll be back in a bit."

"Trick from the old days," Karato says, by way of explanation. "We'll need a pool. The small indoors kind. You know, the kind you mainlanders use for washing yourselves?"

"...A bathtub?"

Karato laughs. "I know what it's called, I'm just messing with you."

They draw a bath - there's a sketchpad kept in the bathroom for just such an occasion. Also, they fill the tub halfway with water.

"So," Karato says, drawing a mark at the water level with a grease pencil, "let's completely immerse it and see how much water it displaces."

Flamingo duly submerged, Karato draws a second mark at the new water level. Son pulls it out, shaking drops of water away. "Now we add water until it hits that point. The amount of water it takes is the volume."

It takes three and a half gallons of water, a number Son scrawls on the back of the flamingo. He goes back to the other room, to find Math sitting there with a tape measure and all the Wego blocks reassembled into a massive brick.

[About 13,250 cubic centimeters], Math displays. [Or 13.25 liters.]

Son refers to the back of the flamingo. "Uh... Karato said it was 3 and a half gallons."

[3.5 gal × 3.785411 L/gal ≈ 13.249 L], Math explains, helpfully.

Son looks back, slowly. "You two... both got the same result."

Karato is standing in the doorway, expression smug. "A surfboard needs to float in a specific way to function well. Knowing the density of the material helps with adjusting 'em for optimal performance. Gotta know how much I can get away with sanding off."

"So, uh," says Son, uncertainly, "how does this help me with calculus?"

[Cut your object into simpler shapes,] says Math. [Like the blocks.]

"Like..." Son squints at the shape on the computer screen. "This could be made of a stack of cylinders?"

Borrowing Son's phone, Math pulls up a picture of a ham being sliced on a deli slicing machine, then pantomimes the slicing motion.

"Very _thin_ cylinders," Son says. "I... think I could do that."


End file.
